


If we fall apart, it was our favorite dream

by lilllac



Category: RWBY
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Romance, because Mercury curses quite a few times, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22810774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilllac/pseuds/lilllac
Summary: Sometimes, when it is late in the morning, and he is stuck again cleaning the coffee shop’s tables, Mercury sees her, at the other side of the street, across the glass fogged by the rain, the girl with the thick books and red hair, waiting for the first bus of the day, and he wonders if her story is more interesting than the ones she’s always reading.Or; Mercury falls in love for the frist time.Ttile taken from the song "scary love" by the neighbourhood
Relationships: Mercury Black/Pyrrha Nikos
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	If we fall apart, it was our favorite dream

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a very short story, probably not more than 3 chapters, but I hope whoever is reading likes it.  
> English is not my first language, so all mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Chapter title also taken from the same song.

It had started snowing last week, but as the responsible citizens of Vale, almost no one used it as an excuse to stop going to work every morning, because, after all, society was a machine that needed to be kept well-calibrated.

Mercury Black didn't skip work at damn five in the morning because he needed the money to fix a leak that had the brilliant idea of showing up at the bathroom sink last week. Because now he was brushing his teeth at the kitchen sink, which was strangely practical and uncomfortable, and he couldn't wait to get back to his normal routine.  
Emerald had gotten that job for him. Well, it was more like she started showing up every day at work with Mercury in tow, and the manager eventually asked if he didn't want to start working for him since he spent so much time holed up there.

Still, he was surprised that when Emerald left for an illusionist convention in Mistral he had not been kicked out of work. Usually, people just kept him around as a price to be paid for Emerald's company.

It was five forty-seven in the morning now, which meant _she_ was supposed to show up anytime. Mercury hummed along to the music coming from the speaker, putting a furniture polisher over the circular table. Almost no one was crazy enough to go to a coffee shop in the most dangerous suburb of the city at dawn, let alone when it was snowing. The ones who were crazy enough generally were also not potential customers.

Mercury didn't care about that. If someone wanted to rob the place while he was there, it was better to start praying for Mom, because the loss was going to be taken from his salary. And Mercury would be _really_ upset about it.

Nor did _she_ seem to be concerned about the high rate of violence in the quiet suburb at dawn. Mercury was not surprised. Vale was full of people like that. Too brave for their own good.

The only thing that bothered him was the feeling that he was doing something wrong. It wasn't like he was trying to watch her. It was just that the cafeteria windows were huge and very clear, and when the same girl appeared every morning, religiously punctual, to wait for the bus at the stop across the street, with a covered book open in her lap and agonizingly red hair, it was a little difficult not to start noticing.  
Mercury had never been able to decipher what she was reading, after all. It seemed to be something smart. Perhaps foreign classic? Even in a different language? She looked like that kind of person.

It was honestly a little annoying.

He finished cleaning the tables, and, like an alarm clock, she turned the corner onto that street. She was wearing a burgundy overcoat that morning, and black high-heeled boots. As well as gloves. This was new. Mercury quickly looked away. One of these days she would see him, looking through the glass, and it would all become a big misunderstanding. And he really didn't want any problems with the police again.

He saw her sitting on the bench out of the corner of his eye and opening a book, and then he went behind the counter to start the coffee grinder. The sound was strangely soothing.

In a way, and very grudgingly, Mercury thought he was starting to ... enjoy it all. And although it was still so profoundly different from everything he knew, it was difficult to say that it was not good, in its way.

The first customer came twenty minutes later, and Mercury sold him a donut and a cappuccino without cinnamon. When he looked up to hand the paper bag over to the middle-aged man, he let his gaze go through the window and noticed that the bench was now empty.

The next morning, Emerald had sent him a photo with a short girl with multicolored hair and heterochromatic eyes that Mercury vaguely recognized as some famous illusionist that his friend was always talking about.

Emerald looked ... happy. In a way he hadn't seen her in a long time.

Not that Em wasn't happy in Vale, with her part-time jobs and the apartment she shared with Mercury. But it was not the purpose of her life, and they both knew it very well.

Smiling, he pocketed his cell phone, not before checking the time. 6:30 AM. The coffee shop was starting to get crowded. The other boy who worked there, some brown-haired asshole with a tuft whose name Mercury had never bothered to learn, was mumbling to a customer while Mercury took care of the cashier.

The doorbell rang, Mercury looked to see who it was, and almost closed the cash drawer on his fingers.

She looked around, seeming lost, and hugging her body with her arms, as if trying to absorb more heat from the clothes - this time, a bright red sweatshirt. She wasn't carrying a book this time.

"Good morning," she said, approaching the cashier, with a smile. "I would like an espresso, please. Medium. Sugar-free... As strong as possible".

Mercury was still a little dizzy with the fact that he was hearing her voice, but he would rather die than appear lost in front of someone:

"Gotcha. Would you like something to accompany that?"

The girl murmured, bending down a little to see what the coffee shop had to offer, and Mercury noticed that even without the heels, they probably didn't have such a stark difference in height.

"Hm ... not today, I think" she replied, finally, handing the price of coffee in cash.

"Right. What's your name, miss?".

"Ah ..." she laughed embarrassed, but Mercury didn't understand why. "You can put Nikos. With a K".

"OK, Nikos with K" he raised an eyebrow. "I'll call as soon as it's ready."

Nikos preferred to wait standing instead of looking for a chair, anxiously looking at the news that was playing on the small television attached to the wall. She was drumming insistently with her right foot, and all of that made Mercury wonder what had happened so that the girl on the bus had suddenly become the girl with anxious feet.

"Nikos!" He called from the counter, holding the plastic cup of steaming bitter coffee in one hand. "Nikos!"

She approached very quickly, thanking him, and Mercury said goodbye with a nod. Before she could turn around and leave, however, the asshole with the tuft came over and pushed, not subtly at all, Mercury with his shoulder.

"Hey" he called. "Nikos, right? It's your first time here?".

"Hm ... Is this relevant in any way? Nikos asked.

"Well... " He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper. A coupon. Ah, damn it. The damn coupon. "This is a promotion for first-time visitors. If you come here again, just look for the seller with the coupon registration... Me" he smiled. "And your second order comes with a very nice discount".

"Okay," she smiled, and despite her expression looking nice, Mercury had the impression she was hiding something. "I'll...-".

"The name is Cardin," the other interrupted. "Cardin Winchester. In case you don't find me at first sight".

"It's all right. Mr. Winchester" she waved, and before Cardin could open his mouth again, she turned and left.

As soon as she walked out the door, Cardin chuckled.

"This one is already mine".

The good thing about growing up and living with a girl like Emerald, was that Mercury knew exactly what kind of response to give to those comments:

"Yes. Your unreachable teenage crush. Are you going to hang up her poster on your wall as well?" Mercury took the cloth he was using to clean the counter and threw it at him: "Get a grip, weirdo".

When he was coming home that day, Mercury unlocked his cell phone to listen to some music on the subway and noticed that notification from the traffic app had been ignored.  
Bus lines blocked by snow accumulated on the streets. Please have patience.

For the next two weeks, the citizens of Vale and the government did their diligent task of clearing snow from the streets, and Nikos continued to show up at the bus stop across the street at five forty-seven in the morning and taking the bus before six, not once crossing to the other sidewalk, but sometimes Mercury would meet her gaze through the glass, and he couldn't tell if she still recognized him, because her eyes always went back down to the pages of her book.

In the fourth week, he found out that she did, because when she sat on the bench, before taking the book out of her backpack, she waved.  
Like a great idiot, Mercury looked back, although it seemed to him that Nikos would rather wave at the devil himself before being forced to wave at Cardin, who was the only other one working there, he needed to check first.

And then, he waved back.

In the sixth week, Mercury and Cardin were cleaning the room with mops when Nikos appeared from across the street, waving, as was the custom now. He waved back. But then, her expression became concerned, and she pointed desperately somewhere behind him.  
Cardin, being the stupid little shit he was, was so distracted by the music coming out of his headphones that he was not noticing that he was soon going to trip over the bucket of water and break something.

Mercury looked back at Nikos, raised his eyebrows and pursed his mouth, as if to say, “Do I really have to? ”. Nikos her smile behind her hand, and Mercury used his own mop to push the bucket out of Cardin's path.

It was snowing a lot now, big sheets of fluffy flakes accumulating on the sidewalks, and few had been the ones to face that cold for a hot cup of chocolate. Mercury almost wondered if there was any chance that she might enter the coffee shop again that day, but the street ban warning had come out at four in the morning, and whoever she was, Nikos seemed like too much of a responsible type of girl to ignore a warning like that.

What was his surprise when, instead of turning the corner, Nikos came running down the main street, protecting her head with her purse and hair flying behind her with each step.

And she was coming straight for him.

Well, for the door, at least.

The bell rang so urgently that it even scared the few customers. Nikos took a moment at the entrance, catching her breath, and when she looked up at him from behind a fringe of red hair, she was smiling, embarrassed.

All Mercury could do was laugh and say:

"A sugar-free espresso?".

"Yeah" she took a deep breath. "And this time, I think I'll have a table".

Mercury would like to have money to pay Nikos a sweet too, even if only as a gesture of goodwill, but he and Em had talked a lot before deciding to squeeze the savings as much as possible so that the girl could go on following her dream in the convention of illusionism, from which she would be back in a few days, so what he could do was replace her average coffee with a big one.

With the place so quiet, Winchester off, and an insistent question in the back of his head, Mercury wanted to sit and talk to the girl.

.... But things didn't work out that way.

He put the coffee on her table, smiled, and went to walk back to the counter, hoping that all of that would eventually pass and he could get back to his monotonous work without the danger of being emotionally intrigued by anyone.

"May I ask a question?".

Mercury froze where he was. Nikos hesitated:

"Uh ... I know you are being nice because it is your job" she smiled, looking away, but then looked straight ahead: "but I would like to know your name anyway. Since you don't wear name tags...".

".... It's Mercury" he said, very slowly.

"Mercury," she repeated as if testing how the name sounded on her voice. "Well, my name is not Nikos. If you want to know".

Mercury was even more curious now. He hesitated for a moment, standing by her desk, and then asked:

"It is not?".

"It's Pyrrha. I didn't say it because all the cafeteria attendants always misspell. It's not their fault, of course. But it avoids the headache. It's P-Y-R -...."

"H-H-A" Mercury completed. And then: "You are Pyrrha Nikos".

".... I am" she sighed.

"Wow" Mercury exasperated, placing the tray under his arm. "Everyone at my school always talked about you".

"Everyone... But not you?"

"Hm," he shrugged. "You were good, but I never really enjoyed the duels. Or championships".

"But you obviously work out," she replied immediately. "I mean ..."

It made him smirk. Mercury was no false saint. He knew very well that he was attractive. But it surprised him that someone like Pyrrha Nikos found him interesting. Objectively speaking.

"Well, yes. My father was ...." A lump formed in his throat, but he continued. That's what he fucking paid for therapy for. "Obsessed with martial arts. I took some of that. Nowadays I just run".

"Competitively?"

"No," he shook his head. "In fact, I doubt that any team would accept me".

"What do you mean?"

"I have some accessories missing. But, what about you? Why did you stop fighting?"

"I did not stop. I'm taking a break to go to college," she explained, and Mercury bit his tongue. She wasn't speaking out of spite, but it felt like she was throwing salt at the wound. "Besides, I needed it".

"Needed?".

"When I was younger, it seemed as if the world knew me better than I did. I know. It's a typical celebrity dilemma. But it's true" she said. "Last year I wondered who Pyrrha Nikos was when she isn't fighting, and I didn't have an answer. It's a little scary".

"I suppose".

"You don't sound convinced".

"Because I'm not," he smirked. -"But you don't have to tell me your secrets. I'm just your coffee shop attendant".

Pyrrha took a sip of her coffee, and Mercury took the hint to get back to work (despite not having that much work to do).

Later, on the bus, he searched for "Pyrrha Nikos" on social media, trying to assimilate the thousands of images of her triumphing over an opponent, victorious smile, sweaty muscles, messy hair, and fierce look, with the girl who had run towards him covering her hair with the backpack that morning.

One photo, in particular, caught his eye. Pyrrha was posing in front of a beautiful school, with a man with a gray beard and fearful eyes. The cell phone shook in Mercury's hand.

 _Lionheart_.

The bus jerked, Mercury was pushed in the direction of another passenger, and the cell phone slipped in his hand.  
A little heart appeared over the image and then disappeared.

Caught off guard, Mercury whispered:

"Fuck".

"No, it wasn't like that!" Mercury complained, but Pyrrha was still laughing, hiding the smile behind a hand. "Emerald set me up!".

"Emerald can communicate with animals?" She asked, holding up her cell phone screen for him.

Mercury looked away. Damn him for losing. On the screen, there was a picture of him, looking exasperated at the kitten that slept on his chest, curled up. Mercury was wearing only a pair of shorts with skull designs and Emerald had drawn a heart on his cheek with green lipstick.

"I already told you!" He tried again. "This picture will only stay there for another two weeks. That was the deal".

"And what do you get out of it?".

"I can use the video game, alone, for a month".

"Isn't Emerald traveling?" Pyrrha asked. "Why don't you use it this month?'.

Mercury opened his mouth to answer.

And then he noticed the size of his stupidity.

What was done was done. Pyrrha laughed again, looking at the image once more. Last night, she had received the notification, started following him, and Mercury had to quickly set his profile to private before her hordes of crazy fans came to investigate who was the random boy Pyrrha Nikos had suddenly started to follow.

Mercury only had ten photos on the app. Five with Emerald. Three were pictures he had taken of some very rare trophy he had won in a video game he was playing. One was a photo taken from the top of the stands on the athletics track, with the beautiful light of the sunset. And the last was Emerald's blackmail.  
Pyrrha, to his surprise, didn't have that many, either. Fifty in all. Much more than him, and much less than most other celebrities. Several with her trainer, Glynda Goodwitch. Some with her mother. At least a dozen with a trio of a blond boy with an innocent face, and two others that he was almost sure to be a couple.  
Mercury had never seen them all. But he could see that Pyrrha Nikos had a fair amount of friends and that they all looked like nice people.

And if that made him a little bit bitter, he knew how to hide very well.

Emerald returned from her travel with a signed contract, a scheduled show, and three boxes of pizza. They drank the beer they still had in the fridge, put a stupid talk show on television and ate while sitting on the living room floor. Emerald guaranteed that they would soon have enough money to move out of that hole, and Mercury had no problem believing her.

He was already a little drunk, and on his eighth piece of pizza when Pyrrha texted him: Ruby came to visit me. And she brought Zwei!

Soon after, she had attached an image of a gray Corgi, sleeping on top of her thighs. Mercury laughed. That caught Emerald's attention:

"Who is it?".

"Pyrrha," he replied, with his mouth full.

"Who?"

"Pyrrha Nikos. You know. The athlete".

"And since when are you the friend of a celebrity athlete?".

Mercury raised his fingers to count:

"Some ... two... No ... _HIC_! About three ... yeah! Three months!".

"You've been friends with Pyrrha "untouchable" Nikos for three months? Emerald laughed. "That's a coincidence".

".... Why?"

"What do you mean 'why', sucker?" Emerald leaned over to flick his head. "You don't know who is sponsoring the .... -".

"Hey!" He laughed, sobbing. "Zwei woke up!".  
Emerald grunted.

Weeks turned into months, and Mercury found out a few things about Pyrrha. She was 22 years old and was taking diplomacy classes at Beacon University. She had won her first national championship at the age of fourteen and had lost none until she was 19 when she was recovering from a fractured knee. She had already tried to be a vegetarian three times and had given up four. She came from Argus, in Mistral, where she had even spent her last Christmas vacation with her ex-boyfriend, Jaune.

Jaune Arc was a nice guy. Graduated in History, future teacher. Educated, charismatic, from a good family. Good with children. Discreet. The king of guy Mercury would love to make fun of. Once upon a time, at least.

But Pyrrha did not speak as if she still liked him. Which is what she explained when the subject of Jaune came up while they were playing chess on Mercury's cell phone.

"I was hopelessly in love with him in high school," she admitted. "And it took him years to notice me. We dated for about three, three and a half years. But at some point ..."

"Did he start having awful breath?". Mercury teased. Pyrrha captured his bishop with a rook. "Worse?! He was no longer—".

"Nothing like that," she rolled her eyes. It was strange. How he had reached that level of intimacy with her when a single malicious look from Cardin made Pyrrha want to break his legs. "We became ... friends. We were together for convenience. And" Mercury captured Pyrrha's horse with his remaining bishop. "Both Jaune and I deserved better than that".

Mercury noticed the way she looked at him after that.

But, for the sake of both them, he decided to pretend he didn't.

Pyrrha was an insistent girl. Not in a bad way - if she were a woman at the other end of the bar at a party, taking the initiative on him, Mercury would already be asking if she wanted to find a quieter place with him a long time ago.

But Pyrrha was not a woman at the other end of the bar. Pyrrha was not the girl he would take home when Emerald was gone. Pyrrha was not the strong-willed woman who would push him into bed while taking off her heels.

Pyrrha wanted more than that, he could see.

Pyrrha was the woman across the counter. The girl who read at the bus stop, and had coffee without sugar, although she didn't like the taste. Pyrrha was the girl who ran her fingers through her red hair when snow stuck to them, and Pyrrha was the girl who brought homemade brownies to Mercury on a Monday morning.

Pyrrha was the girl who took her friend's dog for a walk. Who looked at Mercury as if he could be more - as if he were more - than he was.

All the girls he had been with were like that too, probably. But Mercury never knew them. He didn't want to, and they certainly didn't want him to, either.

Pyrrha was the first. The first he learned about. And the more he learned, the deeper he fell.

And Mercury didn't want to deal with any of that.

Then, every time Pyrrha moved forward, he stepped back, hoping that her momentum would slowly die. Mercury was an attractive guy with a problem-boy charm to him. An enchantment that didn't last three nights. Eventually, Pyrrha was going to realize that she was wasting her time with him.

All he had to do was pretend that none of that was reciprocal.

And fighting with his feelings was an art in which Mercury was already a master.

" Hey, jackass! Cardin called from across the counter. "The boss sent a message saying it is to close for today!".

"What?" Mercury looked up from the cell phone screen, where he was playing a card game with Pyrrha, and the girl took the time to get a combo of his. "Hey!".

"They're going to cut the water in the neighborhood for an hour to clean the plumbing," Cardin continued. "We can't work without water".

Mercury looked out through the windows and saw the pouring rain that was still falling in buckets. Pyrrha followed his gaze.

"Yeah, I wouldn't say 'without water' ...".

Too late, because Cardin was already shooing customers and turning off the machines.

That day, Pyrrha had forgotten her umbrella again, and when Cardin closed the door behind them and marched off to his car, neither of them bothered to try to hitch a ride, and instead, they squeezed to get together under the white plastic cover of the coffee shop.  
"Is your house around here?" She asked. "I could...-".

Cardin took off with a dangerous turn, and Mercury did not react fast enough. Accumulated water flew up the sidewalk, hitting him on his pants, but Pyrrha got the worst of it.

Mercury bit the inside of his mouth to keep from making an unpleasant comment.

Pyrrha used her hand to pinch the tip of her nose in exasperation.

"I cannot believe...-".

"At least it's not mud," he tried to joke.

"No, at least it's not mud," Pyrrha agreed. - But I don't live exactly close ..." she sighed. "This is going to be a very uncomfortable trip".

Mercury pondered for a moment. Part of him wanted to tell her that he was sorry, and maybe lend his jacket so she could put it in the cab. The rational side of his brain kept telling him this was a mistake.

And yet.

"My apartment is this way. I usually take the subway, but we can walk. You can dry yourself there".

Pyrrha looked at him. Mercury looked away from her. It seemed to make her understand what he meant. She lowered her head and murmured:

"Right. It's all right. Yeah, I better go dry myself up".

Mercury walked ahead. He didn't like that expression on Pyrrha's face, but it was better that way.

The apartment he shared with Emerald was considerably small, but thanks to all the months of living on the streets and living on little, it was very clean and organized. If there was anything they agreed on, it was that you had to value the things you had.

"The dryer is over there," he pointed out. "There must be some Emerald clothes folded on top. You can use it while waiting for yours. I think you wear the same size".

Pyrrha agreed, and when she disappeared through the door that led into the small room where they washed their clothes, Mercury went into the kitchen to make coffee.

Personally, after almost two years working at a coffee shop and living with a caffeine addict, Mercury had little interest in the drink. But Pyrrha had been shivering, and he wanted to help.

The coffee was almost finished when Pyrrha came through the door, wearing sweat shorts from Emerald and a tank top from Vacuo's hockey team. Mercury asked her to wait on the couch.

"Do you mind if I play a little?" Pyrrha asked, lifting control of the video game.

"You play?"He asked.

"No fighting tournament games," she replied. " I have enough of that in real life. But I used to play with Ruby and Jaune all the time".

"Sure," Mercury shrugged." Make yourself at home".

Pyrrha chose an indie game that Mercury didn't remember buying. While he waited for the coffee to get ready, Pyrrha was immersed in the story of the game, and when he approached with a full cup, she seemed to be a little startled.

"You talk like you don't play with them anymore," he commented.

"Thank you," she took the cup." Ruby plays online from time to time. It's her job, after all. But Jaune is a little busy with his master's degree and everything"; "We can play together,"

Mercury suggested. "But I'm not very good at exploration games".

Pyrrha laughed.

"You prefer games with more violence, am I right?".

Mercury clicked his tongue, chuckling.

"Wait, so every time I die, do I go back to the BEGINNING of the game? But, what about all my progress?".

"You died," Pyrrha explained. "You lost everything".

"But we don't have, I don't know, a checkpoint?"He watched the game loading screen.

"Your checkpoint is the beginning," she smiled. "On the bright side, you can start over and correct your mistakes".

"What mistakes?".

"Here" Pyrrha took the control from his hand. "If you get too distracted by the timer and just run from enemies, you don't get the best perks in the game, like scrolls or traps. There are the chests too, ”she explained. "You better focus on a single attribute... It will not increase your HP as much as a bet, but knowing you, I think you would do damage with a combination of Scrolls of Violence and a red item ...".

Pyrrha continued to speak, but Mercury was not necessarily listening.

There was something there... Something about it all - the empty coffee cup on the table, the pouring rain outside, drowning them both between the four walls of his apartment,

Pyrrha leaning on his shoulder, talking over and over about something so simple, the way she looked at him every five seconds to make sure he was still listening ...

.... Something that Mercury couldn't understand, but that he desperately wanted to capture and save in his heart until it suffocated him.

Something was hammering in his chest, but it could only be his imagination. It had to be <.br /> Mercury couldn't feel any of that.

The white noise in the background of the dryer suddenly stopped, and Pyrrha immediately heard it. She started to get up.

"I better ...".

Mercury didn't know why, but he was softly holding her arm in his hands. Pyrrha looked at him, waiting to hear something, but Mercury's throat was closed, and there was a ringing in his ears, like a martial band, hammering his thoughts - and his whole body.

And he was shaking.

"Mercury" Pyrrha called softly. So low that it was just a whisper, but in the silence of the house, it was all he could hear.

Mercury had been speechless before when he had been angry or too afraid to think. But never like that. Never quiet because there were too many words.  
He wanted to tell her not to go. To keep talking to him. To stay there for a little while longer. So that she wouldn't get tired of him. So that she wouldn't abandon him.

So that Pyrrha wouldn't hurt him, not when her was giving him everything he had.

Mercury had nothing to say, so he took a sip of courage, and knelt on the couch.

And then he kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> Coments are always appreciated.


End file.
